Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with organized

Bada Bing Book

Sully — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:45:51 -0800

I've been watching the last season of the Sopranos and am curious about the mob in NYC and NJ today. Can you recommend a book or website that details the modern day Mafia? Or, if power has changed hands to a group other than the Italian one, a book about that group? Thanks.

Products that organize your life that you couldn't live without?

mintchip — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:41:45 -0800

Products that organize your life that you couldn't live without? I'm seeking specific product recommendations for things to simplify one's life and things easier and more organized. For example, things like a purse organizer, charging valet or laptop docking station (but I imagine there must be lots of products that I haven't thought of or even heard of). I am alway seeking ways to get more organized.

(In lieu of actual branded products, I'm also interested in interesting "hacks" or ways to use what you already have in a better way...or web sites that list and rate these things)

Buried by the details that I can't find...

odi.et.amo — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:05:55 -0800

How can I get organized at work? I recently started a new role at work that has me managing projects (not people).

I have already made a few inprovements to the system that I inherited, but I am still having some issues when trying to track down details on the spot and give a history and current status.

I have a large multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheet that tracks project details (and cannot be modified very much as it is used in reporting); a list of next steps for the project that I send out every day (via Outlook 2003) - I keep up with some of the status chaging here as well; oodles of daily emails that pertain to my project in general, a test case, or a trouble ticket (which are tracked in my spreadsheet, daily email, to a degree, and a trouble ticket system).

What would be really helpful is a Gmail-type labeling system. I use Outlook and the rules disallow me from auto-forwarding mail. Labels or tags would let me to easily search for -project number-, -test case number-, or -ticket number- and see what has happened lately but it still wouldn't make updating my status on the spreadsheet and daily email messages any easier.

I'm in the process of getting a copy of MS OneNote which should make my note-taking easier to track and search.

When emails come in, I immediately (or by the end of the day) file them into folders, but sometimes I find that I haven't filed where I expected because, for instance, it is related to a ticket, but the ticket number wasn't mentioned, so I file it in the general project folder. I've had trouble in the past with Google Desktop retrieving items from an archive (and still do, even after a re-index).

What other tools could I implement here to make life and project management easier? Will Outlook 2003's categories and search folders give me what I need or is there more to this solution? I will soon be managing two projects at once and will need to be much more organized than I am now.

Also, I'm not looking for something like MS Project - I need help in managing the details of the project. The massive spreadsheet tracks the schedule, and it's not up to me to change that method at this time (we will be eventually migrating to Project).

Hipster PDA Filter - How do you deal with phone numbers and contact info in a paper based system?

krudiger — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:05:05 -0800

I'm interested in switching from my palm to a paper based calendar and to do list, but the one thing I can't seem to make work is my phone book. I've been using my palm for many years so, I have a good number of phone numbers built up in there that I want easy access to - and need to be able to add to. This may sound like a stupid question (use a paper book for phone numbers!), but I'm just interested in how people do this, if they eventually enter numbers back into electronic form to back up (one of the things i like about the palm system is that the couple of times that i've lost my palm, i haven't lost the numbers), etc. Any advice appreciated.